Clara slept for nearly an hour.<\/p>\n
I stayed beside her, listening to the monitor and watching the light shift across the wall.<\/p>\n
I had stopped checking the clock.<\/p>\n
There was no point in counting the minutes when neither of us knew what the next hour would bring.<\/p>\n
When she finally opened her eyes, she looked toward me.<\/p>\n
"Did you sleep?"<\/p>\n
"A little."<\/p>\n
She raised an eyebrow.<\/p>\n
I smiled.<\/p>\n
"All right. Not much."<\/p>\n
For the first time in what felt like a long time, she laughed softly.<\/p>\n
The sound was brief, and it ended almost immediately.<\/p>\n
Still, it made the room feel different.<\/p>\n
I had missed that sound.<\/p>\n
I had missed the easy way we used to talk, when neither of us seemed to be measuring every word before saying it.<\/p>\n
I wanted that back.<\/p>\n
But I was learning that wanting things to return to normal didn't mean they would.<\/p>\n
Clara adjusted her pillow.<\/p>\n
I helped her, then returned to the chair.<\/p>\n
She watched me settle.<\/p>\n
"You're trying very hard."<\/p>\n
I looked at her.<\/p>\n
"At what?"<\/p>\n
"Making sure I'm comfortable. Making sure I don't have to worry about anything."<\/p>\n
I wasn't sure how to answer.<\/p>\n
"Is that bad?"<\/p>\n
"No."<\/p>\n
She paused.<\/p>\n
"But you look like you're carrying something."<\/p>\n
I felt the familiar pressure in my chest.<\/p>\n
She had noticed.<\/p>\n
I could have told her that I was worried about the delivery.<\/p>\n
I could have told her that I was frightened by how quickly things had changed.<\/p>\n
Both answers would have been true.<\/p>\n
Neither would have been complete.<\/p>\n
"I'm trying to understand what I should do," I said.<\/p>\n
Clara looked at me carefully.<\/p>\n
"About what?"<\/p>\n
I glanced toward the window.<\/p>\n
Then I looked back at her.<\/p>\n
"About us."<\/p>\n
She didn't move.<\/p>\n
I continued before I could lose my nerve.<\/p>\n
"I don't want to make things harder for you. But I don't want to keep pretending I haven't noticed that something feels different."<\/p>\n
Clara's expression tightened slightly.<\/p>\n
I immediately regretted the timing.<\/p>\n
She was still in the hospital.<\/p>\n
She had been through a difficult delivery.<\/p>\n
I had promised myself that I wouldn't turn her recovery into an interrogation.<\/p>\n
"I'm not asking you to explain anything right now," I added. "I just wanted you to know how I've been feeling."<\/p>\n
She looked down at the blanket.<\/p>\n
For a while, she said nothing.<\/p>\n
I sat still and let the silence remain.<\/p>\n
Then she asked, "What do you think is different?"<\/p>\n
The question caught me off guard.<\/p>\n
I had expected her to tell me I was worrying too much.<\/p>\n
I had expected her to ask me to stop.<\/p>\n
I hadn't expected her to invite me to explain.<\/p>\n
I took a breath.<\/p>\n
"I don't know exactly."<\/p>\n
She looked at me.<\/p>\n
"Then what are you worried about?"<\/p>\n
I hesitated.<\/p>\n
The phone was on the table beside her bed.<\/p>\n
I could see its dark screen.<\/p>\n
I didn't want to point at it as though it were evidence of something.<\/p>\n
I didn't have evidence.<\/p>\n
I had an uneasy feeling and a series of moments I couldn't explain.<\/p>\n
"I've noticed you seem worried when your phone lights up," I said.<\/p>\n
Clara turned toward the table.<\/p>\n
Her eyes rested on the phone.<\/p>\n
Then she looked back at me.<\/p>\n
I waited.<\/p>\n
She didn't answer immediately.<\/p>\n
I felt my heart beating faster, but I kept my hands still.<\/p>\n
"I haven't looked at your messages," I told her. "I don't want you to think that's what this is about."<\/p>\n
She looked at me for a long moment.<\/p>\n
"I know."<\/p>\n
Those two words surprised me.<\/p>\n
I had expected a denial or an explanation.<\/p>\n
Instead, she sounded tired.<\/p>\n
I didn't know what her answer meant.<\/p>\n
Perhaps she believed me.<\/p>\n
Perhaps she had been waiting for me to say something.<\/p>\n
Perhaps neither of us understood the conversation well enough to know where it was going.<\/p>\n
Clara rested her head against the pillow.<\/p>\n
"I don't know how to talk about everything right now."<\/p>\n
I nodded.<\/p>\n
"You don't have to do it all at once."<\/p>\n
She closed her eyes.<\/p>\n
I wondered whether I had said the right thing.<\/p>\n
Then I reminded myself that this wasn't a performance.<\/p>\n
I didn't need to find perfect words.<\/p>\n
I needed to be honest and give her room to respond.<\/p>\n
After a few minutes, Clara opened her eyes again.<\/p>\n
"Are you angry with me?"<\/p>\n
"No."<\/p>\n
The answer came quickly because it was true.<\/p>\n
"I'm scared," I added. "That's different."<\/p>\n
She looked away.<\/p>\n
I wished I knew what she was thinking.<\/p>\n
I wished I could reach into the space between us and remove whatever was making it difficult for her to speak.<\/p>\n
But I couldn't.<\/p>\n
I could only sit beside her and let her decide what she was ready to say.<\/p>\n
She eventually reached for my hand.<\/p>\n
I took it.<\/p>\n
Her fingers were still weak, and she held mine gently.<\/p>\n
"I don't want you to think I don't trust you," she said.<\/p>\n
I swallowed.<\/p>\n
"Then tell me what you can."<\/p>\n
She looked at me.<\/p>\n
For a moment, I thought she might explain the message.<\/p>\n
Instead, she lowered her eyes.<\/p>\n
"Not yet."<\/p>\n
The words hurt more than I expected.<\/p>\n
I didn't let them become an accusation.<\/p>\n
I nodded.<\/p>\n
"All right."<\/p>\n
Clara seemed to relax slightly.<\/p>\n
I wondered whether she had expected me to argue.<\/p>\n
I wondered whether she was relieved that I hadn't.<\/p>\n
I didn't ask.<\/p>\n
We sat together for a while, holding hands.<\/p>\n
The phone remained untouched.<\/p>\n
I still wanted answers.<\/p>\n
But for the first time, I had told Clara what I was afraid of without pretending that I already knew the truth.<\/p>\n
That mattered.<\/p>\n
It didn't solve the uncertainty.<\/p>\n
It gave us somewhere honest to begin.<\/p>\n
Clara slept for nearly an hour. I stayed beside her, listening to the monitor and watching the light shift across the wall. I had stopped checking the clock. There was … <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":37479,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-37492","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-insightdrama"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37492","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=37492"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37492\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":37512,"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37492\/revisions\/37512"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/37479"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=37492"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=37492"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=37492"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}